A Beautiful, Powerful Project is Born...
'We needed a name for the project, and I had visited Siberia
and noticed how the landscapes there were so harsh and yet
beautiful. The Trans-Siberian Railway, which runs through
there, is the longest railway in the world, connecting the most
people on earth, and I thought about how music is the
universal language that connects the most people, and then
we added the `Orchestra' part because of the symphonic-rock
sound. We liked the 'TSO' initials as well, so the name stuck.'
-Paul O'Neill on naming the group
Somewhere in the universe
Between this night and God
An angel sat upon a star
While thinking very hard
To return once more to the earth
He had been assigned
And a single gift for all of man
He was to leave behind
- The Christmas Attic
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Our Heroes!
Heavy Metal Optimism Is Alive!
'...the power of the arts is staggering. I believe
that a lot of the great moves ahead for mankind
have often come from the arts... The aim of arts
is to touch the emotions, and the easiest emotion
to trigger is anger. I mean, anyone can do it, you
just walk out into the street and throw a rock at
someone's head and they get angry. But to trig-ger laughter, sympathy, compassion, happiness,
joy, those are much harder to do. If you can
trigger those emotions, you can really create
stories with a lot of depth...' - Paul O'Neill
album is a rock opera. It has a
story and poetry between songs.
When we started it, we knew we
were going to break all the rules.
We'll do anything to take people
on a musical roller-coaster ride.
We'll go from full symphony to
piano ballad to a blues number to
a slamming hard rock band to a
single violin... When you mix it
up like that, the rock band kicks
that much harder, the symphony
is more grandiose, the violin is
more haunting and beautiful...'
- Paul O'Neill
Photo by Mary Glenn
- Phoenix New Times
dirtier than broadway, and definitley alot classier
than some rock shows, but in the end, it's alot
of fun!' - Chris Caffery
photo by Mary Glenn
rock 'n' roll where it's, 'Give me
a big stage show with as many
lights as I can stick on the ceil-
ing, and let me blow people away.' And we definitely want to
take people for a roller coaster
ride..." - Paul O'Neill
photo by Newbs
fed by a steady diet of cheesy metal. It's the
only Christmas music that goes well with cans
of beer. These are not your parents' carolers;
these are the carolers your mother warned you
about."
- Jarrod Zickefoose - ClevelandScene.com
photo by Newbs
first 7 show Christmas tour in 1999]...
Our first show in Cleveland sold out in
an hour and a half, and we put two
more on sale there. I realized some-
thing then- That people want to see this
music played live.'' -Bob Kinkel
photo by Mary Glenn
form thought to have died with the Electric Light
Orchestra and Yes. But the orchestra with rock
guitar is the sound of Broadway these days. The
mix we have has the heavy rock elements that
keep the younger kids interested, along with the
classical elements that make the heavier rock
acceptable to older people. We've found a mix
that works for everyone.'' -Bob Kinkel
Copyright 2001 Brian Reichow
http://www.casabrian.com
conciliation, getting back with your
loved ones is the main theme of
Christmas Eve, and it's having so
much more impact this year [after
Sept 11th, 2001]. People really
need those things now, that sense
of family. It's nice, too, that people
come to the show to lose them-
selves for two hours and come out
feeling good.'' -Bob Kinkel
photo by George Haberberger
various rock groups. We were always looking for ways to make the music
have greater and greater emotional impact. We tried to write the music that
was so melodic it didn't need lyrics. And lyrics that were so poetic that they
didn't need music, but once you put the two of them together, the sum of the
parts would be greater than the whole, and you couldn't imagine them apart.
Once we'd done this, we were still looking for a way to take it to even
greater heights, and we realized that putting the songs within the context of a
story would give it a third dimension that would allow us to do that. Hence
we started writing not just albums but rock operas. We realized then that
there was an inherent problem recording rock operas within the standard
rock 'n' roll band makeup. Rock operas by their nature need the voices to
change as the characters change. Rock bands normally only have one (or if
you're lucky) two great vocalists to work with, therefore limiting how far you
can go. You're forced to make the music fit the band, as opposed to allowing
the music to go wherever it needs to. With Trans-Siberian Orchestra, first
the music is created with no artificial limitations and then we seek out, within
classical, rock, Broadway and R&B worlds, the very best singers and
musicians to bring each song to life. This also in many ways forces us to
operate on a higher level. This environment has the added benefit of causing
a cross pollination of musical ideas, creating hybrid forms of music that
normally never would have occurred, such as an R&B singer doing a
classical-style melody and bringing gospel touches to it that cause it to glitter
in ways that even the creators could not have predicted..." - Paul O'Neill
photo by Kerry
